Back in the summer of 2020, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by an Ohio rights owner called TERA, an organization that owns the royalty rights for a number of leases with wells in Belmont County, OH, drilled by different producers, suing the producers for drilling into the Point Pleasant shale layer when the lease only mentions the Utica layer (see OH Landowners Sue Rice, Ascent, XTO, Gulfport for Drilling Too Deep). The case took nearly four years and hundreds of filings by both sides, but last week, a jury found in favor of the drillers (the defendants) and against the rights owner (the plaintiffs). This case likely has far-reaching consequences for landowners and drillers in Ohio.
Back in the summer of 2020, MDN told you about a lawsuit brought by an Ohio rights owner called TERA, an organization that owns the royalty rights for a number of leases with wells in Belmont County, OH, drilled by different producers, suing the producers for drilling into the Point Pleasant shale layer when the lease only mentions the Utica layer (see 